One of the traits my autism gives me is that when I have an interest in something, I tend to get too excited about that thing, which might be why I post so frequently. But obviously I'm on the low-end of the spectrum because I'm able to talk, walk, and pretty much everything anyone else can, as a matter of fact, I think my autism is more of an advantage rather then a disability, I mean, I probably wouldn't know how to program without it! So the point is, sorry, I'll try to do more research before asking questions on forums.

I'm trying to offer words of support, that was not a criticism, because I have reason to believe I may be on the spectrum as well though never diagnosed. I see your environment growing up in the 21st century as being possibly challenging for developing focus on specific topics. If you feel like you'd benefit from chatting with somebody, there are lots of friendly people here who are just a pm away.

My diagnosis is Asperger syndrome, which would nowadays be classified as high-functioning autism with no language delay. But yes, when someone directs you to a resource, I agree that it'd be a good idea to try to get as much from that resource as you can before you ask about things you don't understand.

And as a bit of encouragement: your follow-up question about dividing by 15 based on what you read in the tutorial is the type of specific question that completely makes sense to ask. Posting the sample code that you posted gave some context that you read the information, and were looking for clarification.

The other issue is you are playing with NES which is totally hoekey and bare metal with bugger all to help you. Then you go to VCS which makes the NES look like a High Tea. You have to count every clock and deal with really really constrained coding styles.

To which I suggest you come over to Lemon64 and give the C64 a go first. In that you can start in BASIC and poke and peek to get started, there is an OS, with a keyboard, you can actually program on the machine to test things, i.e you can interact with the machine and see what happens. Then we have tones of official documentation, the Commodore 64 Programmers Reference guide goes into easy simple to read depth of 98% of the C64, and then there is http://www.bombjack.org/commodore/books.htm which covers every aspect in great detail, start with the DK step by step, then try a Jim Butterfield book it will explain all the ins and out of a 6502 in easy to follow tutorials. We have codebase64, c=hacking etc that has lots of the fancy effects demoed and with code to crib etc We have a few younger people over at Lemon, 12,13,14 etc taking their first steps so you can see their early questions and the help they get, look for Link6415's posts. The C64 PRG file is just start address lo, start address hi, code... no fancy headers no custom assemblers just dead simple. Some people at Lemon have commented they tried to start with a NES and that was a mistake, so they came over to the C64 side as it has a lot lower barrier to entry.

Once you know the C64 and you understand how the machine and all the concepts work, then you can take the training wheels of and hit the bare metal of a NES.

Most of the big Atari 2600 homebrew is now done in Batari Basic. There are proof-of-concept games based on Mario, Sonic, Megaman, and Portal. The games made with this tool have a somewhat distinctive look.

Just to make something clear, so the OP doesn't get confused: this means that the programmer has to count cycles when writing code to make sure everything happens when it should and fits within the available time, not that the code itself has to count cycles using registers and/or variables.

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To which I suggest you come over to Lemon64 and give the C64 a go first.

I don't know about the OP, but I personally hate unsolicited platform suggestions. Maybe some people don't care where their software runs as long as it's "retro", or maybe they're fascinated by every obsolete architecture equally, but I believe most people pick their target platforms for more specific reasons. And since both the 2600 and the NES have accessible tutorials written for beginners, I see little reason for looking elsewhere if these are your platforms of choice.

Dwedit wrote:

There are proof-of-concept games based on Mario, Sonic, Megaman, and Portal.

The guy who made that Sonic clone used my sprites without asking for permission or giving me credit, which kinda sucks.

And that all being said, I think you might have given up too soon on the AtariAge community. People there tend to be really nice overall, despite the one or two harsh replies you got. I know spiceware made some updates to his tutorial based on your feedback, to try to make it easier to find what you're looking for. If you really are interested in learning Atari development and have more questions, I'd say come back over there and give everyone another try.

I don't know about the OP, but I personally hate unsolicited platform suggestions.

Man, hate is quite a strong word for friendly suggestions given to a young person experiencing what I'd call "option paralysis." Not everyone has an easy time choosing what they want to do. I had the same problem after college: I knew I wanted to get back into hobby oriented game development but wasn't sure exactly what to focus on. I had had a brief background in QBasic and DOS and had grown up with Atari, NES, gameboy, snes, N64. But at the time lots of new things were available: XNA, rpg maker xp, Uzebox...there were lots of options and most people were saying: "Do the new stuff like XNA!" But I fondly remembered the QBasic days. It took a while but eventually found my way to nesdev, and once I realized it was possible, it helped make the choice clearer. This individual likely did not grow up with any retro system so nostalgia from early childhood likely is not a factor which can help him decide. I think C64 is a great suggestion; sometimes I wish I had grown up with that system!

The guy who made that Sonic clone used my sprites without asking for permission or giving me credit, which kinda sucks.

I always thought that the sprite you used on your profile pic came from that game, now I realize you were first.

And also, don't feel like you have to treat me like a special little snowflake because I'm young, I can handle the real world. I'm rather advanced at programming for my age. I can handle programming these consoles.

I think we're all sincerely interested in your success as we are in the success of any member of nesdev to pursue and achieve what they are interested in. We'll continue to answer your questions and possibly provide suggestions. I see no snowflake treatment amongst any of that. Probably the contrary; or we'd be afraid to give you suggestions Take what anybody says on any forum with a grain of salt in any case, in the end you are in charge of your destiny. You'll do just fine, after all you have a LOT of time ahead of you to learn what you want.

Sorry if that sounded rude, maybe "hate" sounds more trivial in portuguese than in English.

My point is, it's borderline off-topic when someone asks "how do I do this on platform X" and someone replies "better do it on platform Y". If they were constantly complaining about the limitations of platform X, or specifically asked what a good platform for a specific type of project was, then I could see such suggestions being of any actual use, otherwise it's just noise, IMO.

Many times I was discussing Atari 2600 development over at AtariAge and someone would go "This would be great on the 5200" or "this would be easy to do on the 7800", but I don't give a rat's ass about those consoles. They're obscure pieces of hardware that were never sold in my country and I didn't even know existed until a few years ago. I can understand that the forums are full of people who love all those different systems, but I posted on a specific section for a reason.

gauauu wrote:

I think you might have given up too soon on the AtariAge community. People there tend to be really nice overall, despite the one or two harsh replies you got.

Yeah, they're generally pretty cool.

gauauu wrote:

Have you contacted Albert at AtariAge about it?

Nah, didn't want to make a fuss over something I wasn't even using. I guess this is a risk you take when you post stuff online, but I was kinda surprised that someone in the same community would steal stuff like that.

The C64 suggestion is a good one and that's what I would have recommended also,with that said it's completely possible to learn 6502 on nes if one has a large desire to succeed.I'd suggest to have fast look at lemon64,some C64 tutorials and see if that interests you to learn 6502 assembly on.No pressure though,if nes is absolutely the platform of your choice you'll learn/succeed it's just going to take a bit of time.Best of luck to you young man.

Many times I was discussing Atari 2600 development over at AtariAge and someone would go "This would be great on the 5200" or "this would be easy to do on the 7800", but I don't give a rat's ass about those consoles. They're obscure pieces of hardware that were never sold in my country and I didn't even know existed until a few years ago. I can understand that the forums are full of people who love all those different systems, but I posted on a specific section for a reason.

Ugh. I received several comments like this, when I revealed my "top secret" VCS project.

Now, where's the fun in (potentially) using up to a 128KB ROM, when I could make the exact same game, in only 4KB!?Figuring out ways to squeeze more out of limited hardware is fun. Writing needlessly bloated software, is not.

I received several comments like this, when I revealed my "top secret" VCS project.

I think that there are indeed people who have an idea first and then look for an adequate platform to code it for, but I believe that the vast majority already have a platform in mind and are not willing to switch just because another platform is more appropriate.

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Figuring out ways to squeeze more out of limited hardware is fun. Writing needlessly bloated software, is not.

That's what makes retro coding fun for me, thinking of clever ways to make consoles do things they weren't supposed to.

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